sundries

[rm]

Found my passport and cash card. Yay.

Oh god, menstruation. Ow.

New tomatoes have finally been put in the garden.

Diana Gabaldon has posted more on the subject of fanfiction and has promised a third post on the subject. You know where to find it if you want it.

Of course, when things like this happen, a couple of things always happen in response. First, fandom unites. Second, we all play lawyers on the Internet. I like to try to avoid doing the second, and I don't always succeed. I apologize for that, because it doesn't actually improve the discourse.

However, here's the deal. I am a published writer. I plan to be an even more published writer. And I write fanfiction. And I will never stop writing fanfiction. And I do not believe what I do to be illegal. And so, unless you are a lawyer, and, more specifically, my lawyer, I'd appreciate you not telling me I'm committing a crime, disrespecting authors or not being a Real Writer. I won't listen to you, and I'll probably even be cranky, and sadly, not necessarily gracefully. I do know my flaws, if nothing else.

But here's the part I where I get really flumoxed: fandom and fanfiction are HUGE parts of what I do. I met my partner through fanfiction. I write fanfiction with my friends. I have published perfectly legal work for money that is arguably in the category of fanfiction. I do scholarship about fandom and fan culture. And yes, to be super blunt, I read porn people write about other people's characters on the Internet, and every once in a while it has changed my life.

I'm not interested in defending fanfic, although I sure get called to a lot in all sorts of ways. And when it's not about how it's illegal or how I'm wasting my life with low-culture (arguments I have nearly always lost in the minds of those who start them before the discussion even begins, because they are almost always about scolding and shaming, achieving status by denigrating another's, and playing that serious man vs. silly woman card¹), I am pretty much always interested in talking about it.

Of course, because I have no self-control and am easily indignant, I get into these things where I want to mention the Gabaldon thing in passing and then here I am defending fanfiction or playing a lawyer on the Internet or otherwise engaging the topic in a way that is counterproductive for me, you, and it.

But seriously, if you think the existence of fanfiction, the enjoyment of it, the respect for it, the curiosity about it, the creation of it is illegal, immoral or a weakness of character, then I would seriously, seriously question why you're here. While this is something we can agree to disagree on to a given extent because, ultimately, your views don't affect me, if you think I'm immoral or criminal or just pathetic... well, I just don't get it, no matter how much you like my other content. But hey, an audience is an audience, and ultimately this stuff is more about you than me. *shrug*

Meanwhile, from the department of credit where credit is due: Apparently Sen. McCain doesn't think the Time Square bombing suspect should have been read his Miranda rights, despite being a US citizen arrested on US soil. Glenn Beck, however, does. At least that's what The Daily Show tells me. Yes folks, I'm agreeing with Glenn Beck. What the hell?

Ethics for Extraterrestrials

Anti-gay activist returns from European vacation with rent-boy.

Help ensure relationship equality in Hawaii.

When languages meet. Or, China tries do something about those wacky English signs.

Last night on Angel it was time for Lorne's ridiculous backstory. There's a lot wrong with this episode, including Lorne's cousin's "this monotone is how we tell you he is a Viking" and Cordy getting food posioning while eating the food in question, but there's a lot right with it too, including the parallel between Lorne's cousin not dying while Gunn's dead friend sorta winds up with the Viking funeral. Also, Hollywood sucks. And Angel? Is a COMPLETE asshole. Who the fuck arbitrarily shows up at someone else's JOB? Also, can anything happen that doesn't make Wesley make the "my heart is breaking" face? I ask you that, and can only think of Ianto's father pushing him too hard on the swings.

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¹ Seriously. As much as I have a lot of discomfort with the "fanfiction is by women for women" angle that the OTW promotes because I don't live in a world that dichotomous and I'm in a fandom that is much less gender-skewed than many others, fanfiction discussions get ugly on gendered terms very, very quickly as a rule. Whether that's the craft and significance of fic getting dismissed because it's "just women," the policing of female and queer sexuality, the fetishization of the men who do write fanfiction (or accusations of same), or the calling people out for just wanting attention (hello mode of women attacking other women that Gabaldon engaged in so effectively in her first screed on the subject), this stuff happens all the time. I can't tell you how often in a fanfiction discussion someone has said to me something along the lines of "I thought you were a serious woman" as opposed to "I thought you were a serious person." It's deeply, deeply telling.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Sure, at least she admits that Stacey is real, but the pitch of the whole thing is still intensely irritating (apparently?????). That said, had this been her first missive on the subject, the whole thing would have escape my comment. Instead, there was the first screed, the prior comment regarding white slavery, her history of defending plagiarists, and, oh yeah, her hypocrisy as regards her own writing process/product.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 'slightly encouraged' here is definitely a relative thing. The more of her blog I read, the more uncomfortable I get.

Why is the Internet full of crazy?

[editrx.livejournal.com]

... her history of defending plagiarists ...

Have you ever read my stories of some of the truly awful romance books I used to copy edit, which included lines such as (as a Native American comes up to a naked white woman bathing in a creek), "he came upon her in a stream ..." ::facepalm::

Or the entire section of the same book where it was clear the author was changing up words by looking in a thesaurus, but didn't know what the words meant? (e.g.: "the river that dissected the city" or, "he handed her a mug of coffee and some sweetbreads" [for breakfast!] or my favorite, "the Indian brave died, fluttering to the ground.")

I ended up, after four or five of these atrocities, telling the publisher I wouldn't copy edit that author again for even twice the usual rate. Ever. And then the author moved to another publisher (apparently because she was too much of a pain in the ass, and no one in-house wanted her), who asked me again to copy edit her! It was like stalking. Bizarre.

I finally ended up asking the second publisher if English was her second or even third language. It was that bad.

The author? You guessed it: CASSIE EDWARDS.

Gah. The plagiarism came later, thank god. I didn't have to endure that on my watch. But when I heard about it, I wasn't at all surprised. Sadly, Gabaldon's defense of Edwards doesn't surprise me either: they're both not very good writers in the same genre of flawed romance/historical/pr0n (to put it gently).